Latest Test and Measurement News

800 Gigabit Ethernet, 8 Lane PAM4 Protocol Test Solution

31 January 2023 – Teledyne LeCroy announced the SierraNet M1288 Protocol Test Solution, which supports analysis of up to 8 lanes of IEEE 802.3ck based Ethernet traffic and 112GbE four-level Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM4). Doubling the speeds of previous ethernet protocol testing solutions, the M1288 enables troubleshooting from the physical layer through the application layer for up to 800 Gigabit Ethernet traffic.

Hyperscale data centers, which are experiencing explosive demand from network users for high-performance computing and cloud storage, require more network bandwidth and throughput to support massive transfers of data. To satisfy this demand, network equipment manufacturers, service providers and chip manufacturers are developing switches, network interface cards (NIC’s), optical modules, and infrastructures based on the IEEE 802.3ck specification that support up to 800 Gigabit per second data rates. The SierraNet M1288 Protocol Test Solution is the latest in the line of comprehensive, industry leading test and measurement tools from Teledyne LeCroy and is designed to test today’s high-speed storage and networking fabrics. It supports capture and analysis of links utilizing PAM4 or legacy Non-Return to Zero (NRZ) signal modulation techniques, at up to 8 lanes of Ethernet traffic, as well as clause 73 and 162 for auto negotiation and link training.

The SierraNet M1288 offers error injection and analysis for all layers of the Ethernet Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model, which helps design and test engineers shorten product time-to-market by:

• testing link negotiation to ensure it results in good signal quality
• confirming upper layer protocol compliance
• validating overall interoperability and performance
• stressing product designs to find issues early in the test cycle

The SierraNet product family and the SierraNet M1288 works with the Teledyne LeCroy Net Protocol Suite, delivering comprehensive capture, analysis, visualization, error injection and validation of compliance to specifications of Ethernet links.

“In network environments, as signaling rates increase so does the susceptibility to errors. To reduce the error rate, systems negotiate transmission parameters that should maximize signal quality at the receiver. PAM4 systems designers are demanding link-layer analysis capabilities to ensure the negotiation among components is effective” said Nick Kriczky, Vice President of Network Solutions at Teledyne LeCroy. “As the networking industry moves to 800Gb Ethernet, there is an growing need to fully validate Ethernet products. The SierraNet M1288 does this by identifying link-training issues and in validating protocol interoperability between major fabric components such as switches, network interface cards, servers, and Network Attached Storage (NAS).”

Availability

The SierraNet M1288 analysis and test system is available to order now. F

www.teledynelecroy.com/